Guess what? I am a hypocrite.
When reading my social media posts and the Google Classroom I use as a professional development tool for teachers and administrators in my district, you would find several (okay, a significant amount) of posts, quotes, images, etc., pertaining to education. Specifically, growth mindset, moving beyond grades, evaluating students as a whole person and not a test score, focusing on “soft” skills, et al.
In short, I preach, at least virtually, that our schools’ focus should be on student learning, and mastery, not on student GRADES, or standardized test scores. I wholeheartedly believe this. Articles about this can be found HERE and HERE and HERE.
(Enter educational hypocrisy here.)
At home, a mother to 16-year-old sophomore and 17-year-old junior boys, I catch myself all the time asking my precious children the following questions:
Are you going to get an A on that test/project/paper/in that class?
Are you studying and preparing for the SAT/ACT?
What is your current class rank?
Wow, that third one thrown in there is a real doozy. Bonus pressure. It’s true that over 200 colleges and universities have dropped the SAT and ACT from their application requirements (referred to as “Test Optional Schools”). However, the majority of public and private college and university systems, several government assistance programs, and competitive and non-competitive scholarships require, if not depend entirely upon, these three factors: GPA, SAT/ACT Scores, Class Rank.
Therefore, while experts literally around the globe tout the benefits of proficiency reporting and abandoning standardized tests for a more holistic student assessment, even those of us in K-12 who follow, like, and retweet those philosophies are forced to live a double life as long as our Higher Ed counterparts are not following suit.
I have two reflections on this personal conflict.
First, a standardization of some sort is imperative to level the playing field when trying to decipher between thousands and thousands of applicants at these universities. Without cut scores, how would they possibly analyze 20,000-30,000 student records? It’s just not feasible.
I completely get it. As a matter of fact, I am a fan of a unifying test. How else can you compare a student from Texas with one from Florida and one from Kentucky when they all have a 4.0 or higher? A school’s rigor is impossible to determine from transcripts. If every analysis were based only or mostly on GPA, then what would stop schools from giving anyone and everyone all A’s all the time, in order to boost students’ chances? Trust me, it happens.
Secondly, K-12 Education and Higher Education, while not necessarily mutually exclusive, are entirely different beasts. They need not and should not directly mirror each other. While an integral part of K-12 is to prepare students for Higher Education (or another chosen path), colleges and universities can dictate their admissions guidelines however they so desire. Unlike public K-12 schools, they are NOT trying to educate everybody. If a student chooses to apply to a certain college or university, then s/he must attempt to reach the admissions standards set by that institution. Period.
Therefore, my K-12 self will continue to share the growth mindset, holistic child philosophy at school. My (admittedly slightly psycho) college-prep-mom self will continue to check on my sons’ test grades and homework progress.
It boils down to this: college is expensive. The boys are a year apart. We want them to reach their full potential, whatever that may be. We want to take care of their college for them so they have little or no debt when they graduate.
Regardless of my excuses, I wish the questions I asked the boys went more like this:
It’s okay if you didn’t get an A. Did you learn from your mistakes?
How well did you work with others on that project?
What could you do better next time?
Are there activities you do in school now that might help you determine what you want to do as a career?
What can we do to help support you in your school work?
I know this would be a better. A lot better.
Goals.
Polka Dot Leap 